The monolithic distributed amplifier is a "traveling wave" broadband amplifier designed to meet the increasing need for a cost effective and high reliability microwave amplifiers. The monolithic design allows for integration of the amplifier onto a single discrete chip eliminating the need for extensive tuning and wire bonding. However, the distributed amplifiers developed thus far do not incorporate the amplifier DC biasing networks on the monolithic chips themselves. To implement these off chip biasing networks, it is necessary to provide additional blocking capacitors and bond wires, thereby requiring substantial tuning of the bondwires and the capacitance values in order to achieve the desired performance. Additionally, because of the bonding requirements, DC losses from the bias sources result, thereby reducing the overall efficiency of these amplifiers. Further, the necessity of the bonding reduces the reliability of the amplifier because of the inherent defects associated with the bonding process.
In addition to the disadvantages of the prior art schemes involving off-chip DC biasing, is the concern of improving the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of the distributed amplifier, while maintaining the desired frequency bandwidth. Although providing additional amplifier stages would improve the overall VSWR, the additional stages would have the effect of reducing the cut off frequency of the amplifier.